Students for Life: Turning the Tide

The tide is turning on abortion. That’s the claim of Students for Life of America (SFLA), the largest pro-life youth organization in the nation. This courageous network of student leaders seeks to “abolish abortion”—sounds ambitious, but their efforts to educate, equip, and empower students across America for the pro-life movement credibly bring it within reach for this generation.

Convinced that school campuses are on the front lines of the pro-life movement, these students seek to end the genocide that is abortion in America. They recognize that college-age women are the most targeted when it comes to abortions, so they equip pro-life student leaders to reach women in need on their campuses and offer compassion and support as an alternative to abortion. To help these women, SFLA launched the Pregnant on Campus Initiative.

Since SFLA focuses largely on aiding student leaders, they hold a conference each year on the eve of the Roe v. Wade anniversary, speaking to thousands of students and adults nation-wide about ending abortion. At the conference, attendees can learn about major issues and topics within the pro-life movement, hear from national pro-life speakers, network with other leaders, and find potential jobs or internships. The conference is also scheduled during the same week as the March for Life and other pro-life events, such as the Annual National Prayer Service.

In past years, students who have attended the conference received necessary training, contacts, and support to improve the pro-life groups they lead on their campuses. Erin Biermacher, a student leader for Michigan State Students for Life, said that before the conference, she felt alone as a defender of life. After attending, however, she realized how passionately her peers are devoted to preserving the unborn. She described it as a “life altering experience.”

Leaders such as Biermacher have seen a difference in their school’s pro-life club since partnering with Students for Life. Indeed, the general attitude among these leaders seems to be one of hope—an attitude which Kristan Hawkins, founder of SFLA, echoed in an interview.

“For many of us, legal abortion, in all nine months of pregnancy, on demand, is all that we have ever known,” says Hawkins. “I try to remind people that our movement is similar to the slavery-abolitionist movement. It’s not a quick fight, but a long battle that will be victorious.”

The SFLA National Conference will be held on Tuesday January 21, 2014. For details, visit the Student for Life’s website. Are you going? Have you gone before? Share your experience in the comments.